BUDAPEST — A day after President Donald Trump said God is on the side of the United States in its war with Iran, Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday declined to go that far.
A Catholic and Iraq War veteran who has long expressed skepticism of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, Vance said he believed his administration is acting correctly but suggested it was not his place to declare whether the deadly and destructive strikes on Iranian officials, civilians and infrastructure reflect God’s will.
“Is God on our side?” Vance said when asked by The Washington Post whether he agreed with some top U.S. officials who have framed the war in religious terms, including Trump. “I think my attitude towards military conflict has always been to pray that we are on God’s side.”
“And my own view is that we’re doing this for the right reasons: We’re doing this because we don’t want a regime that has committed acts of terrorism to have the world’s most dangerous weapon, because that would mean a lot of innocent people die,” Vance continued. “I certainly hope that God agrees with the decision that Iran shouldn’t have a nuclear weapon, but I’ll keep praying about it.”
Trump said when asked by The Post on Monday that he believes God supports the United States’ actions in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, a widening conflict that has killed thousands in the Middle East, wounded many more and left 13 U.S. service members dead.
“I do, because God is good,” Trump said in response to a Post reporter’s question during a White House press briefing. “And God wants to see people taken care of.”
Vance’s comments, made during a news conference boosting Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of Hungary’s election Sunday, reflected both his own hesitation about rushing into complicated, deadly wars and also a Catholic faith that has consistently called for governments to avoid war.
On Sunday, Pope Leo XIV did just that: “Let those who have weapons lay them down,” he said during his Easter message. “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!” A week earlier, on Palm Sunday, Leo preached that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war,” and last week the American-born pope also urged Trump to work to end the war.
Calling himself a “skeptic of foreign military interventions,” Vance told The Post in an interview in February that “there is no chance” Trump would allow the U.S. to “be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight.”
After threatening in recent days to bomb Iran’s infrastructure back to “the stone ages” if the nation does not strike a deal he finds acceptable to end the war, Trump on Tuesday went even further. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, in another threat for Iran to meet U.S. and Israeli demands. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
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